The Avrograd News public service, specializing in inside information about AvtoVAZ’s activities, reports that by the end of the year the plant will significantly reduce the number of under-equipped cars that are in AvtoVAZ’s warehouse awaiting the missing equipment and subsequent shipment to car dealerships. So, if in October it was known about 12 thousand understaffed Vestas, then by mid-November there were only four thousand left.
As for the Granta model, which remains Lada’s bestseller, there are less than three thousand understaffed cars left in the plant’s warehouse, insiders specify. In a positive scenario, AvtoVAZ will retrofit and send all cars for sale before the New Year. The company itself declined to comment.
During the year, AvtoVAZ faced various problems. So, in January it became known that the plant was experiencing a paint shortage. In the summer, the Association of Automobile Dealers complained that Lada lacked an ERA-GLONASS panic button and a plastic edging for the multimedia system. In addition, for some time the Granta was produced without airbags, in August this option was returned – both the front airbag for the driver and the passenger – and in November information appeared that the Granta (as well as the Niva) were again rolling off the assembly line without airbags.
A few days earlier, the AvtoVAZ press service reported that an anti-crisis version without airbags, “complying with the regulations and rules in force in Russia,” may again appear in the Granta range. The company did not specify when such “public sector” products will be brought to market.
And today information has appeared that the production of airbags, as well as belts, will be localized in Russia at UAZ facilities through the efforts of Sollers. Domestic security systems may appear not only on Sollers and UAZ cars, but also on Moskvich cars and GAZ models. Lada has not yet been named among potential customers.
New Russians: premieres of our automobile industry
